Drabblefest
by lazaefair
Summary: Collection of drabbles written between Dec 2005 and Oct 2006. All pairings. Some swearing.


1.

It was raining again.

Fuu and Mugen complained when it rained. Jin endured in stoic silence.

Though now, rain didn't bother him so much. Rain had cloaked him, surrounded him, offered a steady counterpoint to the drumming of his heart as he'd stood behind her - naked as the day he was born - and watched her in the mirror. She wasn't pretty, not even as pretty as Fuu. But she was Shino. She'd helped him, talked to him.

She was beautiful.

Rain dripped down Jin's glasses and nose. In his mind's eye, he saw the sun come out.

2.

Mugen has always lived in the sun. Where he grew up, the sun reflected off ocean, blazed off sand, beat down on roofs and heads. Flashed off swords and knives, dried blood up until it was only a memory in the dirt. The sun can make tempers short, can soothe shivering souls. Sometimes Mugen acts as if he's sun-addled.

Sometimes he wonders about this business with sunflowers.

Mugen is brown all over from the sun's influence. He fights in the sun, relentlessly, wildly. He makes his peace with the sun every day, and fights and fucks and eats and travels, fierce and greedy, and the sun knows no limits.

3.

She had always worn dark colors. It suited her complexion. Brothels liked their employees to be displayed to every advantage.

She had always sent her daughter out to play in the cherry tree garden while she entertained customers.

Fuu'd watched through a window, once, through a rip in the paper. Mother had told her to stay in the garden, but she was curious. They were never separated otherwise, why did Mother always forbid her to enter the house whenever the strange men stepped into their room?

Fuu remembers. Cherry blossoms had rained down like heavenly snow, pink and fluffy and delicate, festooned in her hair, as she watched her mother being taken.

Fuu always wears sakura now, on her body, close to her heart, clasped around her knife. Never the dark colors Mother had always worn. Never.

4.

It is a comical tableau when I walk in. A filthy, rangy, stray dog in a red jacket has the spoiled blond poodle by the hand and from the looks of has broken quite a few fingers. The question the poodle asks me is pathetic in its begging, though I infer from it that he expects protection by the magistrate's bodyguards, so he must be related to the bastard somehow. Most likely a son. If so, I am better off leaving.

Then the stray dog attacks. Two seconds of lightning fast motion and I...

...haven't killed him.

What the hell? I am caught up in a fight with a wild man with no discipline in his style. I've never met a more inefficient, inelegant fighter. He should be dead right about...now.

He's not dead yet.

5.

Jin's voice is serene and quiet. There is an undercurrent of some hidden anguish never brought to light, yet he does not speak as if weakened by it. He is strong and resolutely disciplined.

Mugen's voice is low and gruff, the voice of an animal that, somehow, isn't. He always speaks as if he's angry. Or just raw with life. He is a paradox in dissolution and fierce intensity, yet the difference is as seamless as his wild fighting.

Fuu's voice is high and girlish. She is, after all, a girl. It varies the most among the three, ranging from low and wistful when she speaks of the sunflower samurai, to shrill with rage when she scolds Mugen. (Or Jin, or both.) There is always light and hope, even when she cries.

Sara could make quite a study of these voices of her companions. Her own solitary voice has kept her company in sadness for too long. She longs for a life where she may laugh and talk and listen to her friends in peace.

Yet, it is no matter how much she desires to hear each voice for itself. No matter that each voice is as unique and fascinating as a tangled Gordian knot, each one just asking to be unraveled at her leisure. No matter, because every time she hears Jin, or Mugen, or Fuu speak, she hears only the voice of her child.

6.

He's dead. He's dead. I...oh, god.

He's dead. And I a tool for the ones who killed him.

Do they have to die, too? Do I have to kill them? For a dead child?

Dead and gone.

Fuu...Fuu's only a child as well. Would I spill her blood in return for...for...

Jin killed Mariya Enshiro, so maybe he...no. No. He has never raised a hand against me. He's never come within three inches of me. He's treated me with courtesy above my station, and restrained Mugen whenever he got too overwhelming.

He agreed to come with me, knowing that I...I was...to save his companions...

No. I can't.

And Mugen...

I almost killed him, you know. If it hadn't been for Fuu (dear, sweet, innocent, caring young Fuu, so hopeful yet so hopeless in her impossible quest), I would've...I would've killed him. His anger flowing out with his blood. Died with the knowledge that a friend betrayed him. A friend who'd never been his friend...

I think he's too familiar with betrayal, though. The stray dog look to him sometimes, and the bits about his past he or the other two talked about in low, terse allusions. He knows betrayal. He isn't surprised by it.

...like me. Oh, god. To kill him like that, it would've...it shouldn't. He shouldn't have to die of betrayal. He can't. He can't. He's too bruised to be kicked by someone who deserves it more.

There's nothing I can do for them. Nothing I can do for myself.

Nothing for me. No eyes, and nothing but skill with instruments of music and death, skill that I don't...

I will die, then. I can do that much. Perhaps it will give Mugen some satisfaction.

Die, and they will live...

7.

"Aw, fuckin' hell. He's bleedin' all over my shoes."

Jin had a stare that, when he used it, had a silent but accusatory effect on its victim, inducing immediate guilt. He used it now. Mugen, of course, failed to notice. The Ryukyuu sinner kicked the corpse instead.

"You realize this will bring down more assassins on our heads."

"Bring 'em on."

"And Fuu will..." here a delicate pause, "not be pleased."

Mugen, at the thought of a pissed off Fuu (she knew exactly how to pitch her voice to maximize a headache), looked like he'd bitten into a rotting squirrel. "Damn."

Jin merely employed his stare again, partly because he knew Fuu would yell at him as well despite the whole incident being Mugen's fault. Mugen finally noticed the steady glare and frowned.

"And you can go to hell."

8.

In the end, it was the man's persistence that enticed me.

Never mind he was a foreigner--he claimed he was native Japanese, dressed in oversized Japanese clothes, and spoke the language passably, which allowed him to skate away on the thin edge of legality--and named Isaac, a name that is strange on my tongue. The novelty only served to increase my attraction to him.

It helped that he was so devoted. The practice of sending tokens--flowers especially-- to celebrated actors is not one I am unfamiliar with, but Isaac was extraordinary in his attentions. Devotion in the hierarchy of my society is not unfamiliar either, but his...yes, I would call it love, was not one that is usually found in a high-ranking official for an artist. Isaac was an anomaly in my narrow world, and I became fascinated by him.

In the end, this was why we ended last night twined around each other, clothing in total disarray. For all his size and perceived foreign clumsiness, the man is really good in bed.


End file.
